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20 January, 2017

BBC History Magazine will soon be publishing a special edition 'bookazine' about the medieval kings and queens of England. An article of mine about Isabella of France will be appearing, and I was also asked to write the opinion piece. Here's a sneak preview...

15 January, 2017

Owing to bereavement I am unfortunately unable to write a blog post at the moment, but hope to resume normal service soon. In the meantime, my second book Isabella of France: The Rebel Queen is out in paperback in the UK today priced at £13.48, though is already out of stock on Amazon. Hope they get lots more copies soon! You can buy it from WH Smith for only £10.49, or from Waterstones. And my third book Long Live the King? The Mysterious Fate of Edward II is now with the publisher and will be out in some months; more info here as and when I have it. My Richard II biography will also be out in about autumn this year.

06 January, 2017

Today marks the 650th anniversary of the birth of King Richard II of England, who was the great-grandson of Edward II and who shared his fate of deposition.

Richard was the second son of Edward of Woodstock, prince of Wales and Aquitaine, duke of Cornwall and earl of Chester, eldest of the five sons of Edward III, and Joan of Kent, countess of Kent in her own right. Edward of Woodstock had been appointed prince of Aquitaine in 1362, and so Richard was born there, in the important city of Bordeaux. His birthday of 6 January is Epiphany or Twelfth Night or the feast of the Three Kings, and rather remarkably three kings are said to have attended his baptism in Bordeaux several days after his birth. I discuss the kings' identities in my forthcoming (and as yet untitled) biography of Richard. Also present in Bordeaux in January 1367 was the chronicler Jean Froissart, who was to meet Richard again in England twenty-eight years later.

Richard of Bordeaux - as he is often called - was born third in line to the English throne behind his father and his elder brother Edward of Angoulême, who was not quite two years old at the time, born on 27 January 1365 also in Aquitaine. Richard's paternal grandfather Edward III had been king of England for almost exactly forty years at the time of Richard's birth, and his paternal grandmother Queen Philippa was also still alive. As I pointed out in a recent post, Richard's ancestry was confusingly tangled and inter-related; he was both the great-grandson and great-great-grandson of Edward I of England, both the great-great-grandson and the great-great-great-grandson of Philip III of France, and so on. By 1367 the name Richard had become unusual in the English royal family, and the last royal to bear the name was King John's younger son and Henry III's brother Richard of Cornwall, who presumably was named after his uncle King Richard Lionheart and who died in 1272. Richard of Bordeaux spent the first four years of his life in France, and travelled to England with his parents in early 1371, leaving behind the body of his recently deceased brother Edward of Angoulême. Richard had Edward's body transported to England in the early 1390s and reburied at Langley Priory, founded by their great-grandfather Edward II in 1308.

Richard's father died in June 1376 and the ten-year-old boy succeeded his grandfather as king of England a year later. Shortly after he turned fifteen in January 1382, he married his beloved Anne of Bohemia, who was born in May 1366 and was the daughter of the great Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV from his fourth marriage to the Polish noblewoman Elizabeth of Pomerania, daughter of the duke of Pomerania and granddaughter of Kazimierz III Wielki, Casimir III the Great, king of Poland. Anne was born in Prague, and so from January 1382 until Anne's premature death in June 1394, the king and queen of England were born in Bordeaux and Prague respectively. Richard's much younger second queen Isabelle of France, whom he married in early November 1396 just before her seventh birthday, was born in the Louvre in Paris, now a world-famous museum but then a twelfth-century fortification transformed into a royal palace by Isabelle's grandfather Charles V. Richard II himself was deposed by his cousin Henry IV and murdered in early 1400 some weeks after he turned thirty-three, Anne of Bohemia died at twenty-eight, and Isabelle of France died at not yet twenty shortly after giving birth to her only child Jeanne, duchess of Alençon (who herself died childless in her early twenties and whose father was Isabelle's first cousin Charles of Orléans). I wish all of them had enjoyed happier fates.

Edward's titles, 1312

Edward, par la grace de DIEU, Roi d’Engleterre, seignur d’Irlaunde, ducs d’Aquitaine, & conte de Pontif & de Monstroil
[Edward, by the grace of GOD, King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of Aquitaine, and Count of Ponthieu and Montreuil]

Edward II's coronation oath: translation

Sire, will you grant and keep and by your oath confirm to the people of England the laws and customs given to them by the previous just and god-fearing kings, your ancestors, and especially the laws, customs, and liberties granted to the clergy and people by the glorious king, the sainted Edward, your predecessor?
I grant and promise them.
Sire, will you in all your judgments, so far as in you lies, preserve to God and Holy Church, and to the people and clergy, entire peace and concord before God?
I will preserve them.
Sire, will you, so far as in you lies, cause justice to be rendered rightly, impartially, and wisely, in compassion and in truth?
I will do so.
Sire, do you grant to be held and observed the just laws and customs that the community of your realm shall determine, and will you, so far as in you lies, defend and strengthen them to the honour of God?
I grant and promise them.

Penny of Edward II's reign

Tomb of Edward II

Amouncement of the birth of Edward III, November 1312

Isabella, by the grace of God, Queen of England, Lady of Ireland, and Duchess of Aquitaine, to our well-beloved the Mayor and aldermen and the commonalty of London, greeting. Forasmuch as we believe that you would willingly hear good tidings of us, we do make known to you that our Lord, of His grace, has delivered us of a son, on the 13th day of November, with safety to ourselves, and to the child. May our Lord preserve you.

Berkeley Castle, scene of Edward II's imprisonment

Letter of Queen Isabella to Edward II, 1314

My very dear and dread Lord, I commend myself to you as humbly as I can. My dear Lord, you have heard how our seneschal and our controller of Ponthieu have come from Ponthieu concerning our affairs; ...I beg you, my gentle Lord, that by this message it may please you to request your chancellor by letter that he may summon those of your council to him and take steps speedily in this matter, according to what he and your council see what is best to do for your honour and profit....May the Holy Spirit keep you, my very dear and dread Lord.

The Vita Edwardi Secundi on Edward II and Piers Gaveston

I do not remember to have heard that one man so loved another. Jonathan cherished David, Achilles loved Patroclus. But we do not read that they were immoderate. Our King, however, was incapable of moderate favour, and on account of Piers was said to forget himself, and so Piers was accounted a sorcerer.